James' 1st soccer season

James is really enjoying his first soccer season.  His team name is The Rockets and his number is 19. He coincidentally already knows one boy on the team from school last year.  The boys on James' team are a great group of kids...they are really friendly, work hard during practice and games, and have a ton of fun.  James' coach is really good at keeping the boys attention and earning their respect.  James has already learned so much, and it's only 4 weeks into the season.

James is a good hustler, and is not afraid to get into the middle of the action.  He hasn't scored a goal yet, but he congratulates his team mates when they score.  He's been known to initiate a fist bump or two.  James has also been known to celebrate any contact he has with the ball by posing like a super hero.

Fist bump!

Preschool has begun!

James and Audrey started preschool at University Christian Church for another school year on September 4. 

James is in the 4's class with Mrs. Gonzalez and Mrs. Keith.  There are 17 kids in his class and several are from his class last year including a couple close friends. He goes 3 mornings a week (M, W, and F). 

Audrey is in the 2's class with Mrs. Hallie and 5 other kids.  There is not anyone from her class last year, but one of the boys is one of our regular play date friends.  Audrey goes to school 2 mornings a week (W and F).

I tried to get a good 1st day of school picture, but Audrey insists on saying "cheese" and putting her hands up, and James is incapable of making any sort of normal face for pictures.  So, here you go...

Road Trip

In July, we pulled out of our driveway in a rented minivan for a 2-week adventure to Reno, NV to visit Dave's grandma.

Our first stop after a full day of driving was in Albuquerque, NM.  We were only there long enough to sleep. 

The next day, we took a much shorter drive to Durango, CO.  We spent 2 nights at a beautiful bed and breakfast called Blue Lake Ranch.  The B&B was surrounded by beautiful gardens, a lake, a pond, and hiking trails, and the breakfast was delicious!  We will definitely stay there again! The first night we were in Durango, we went to a Chuckwagon Show that included dinner and a concert.  There was a little train ride and a playground for the kids.  James got a little too excited during the concert and tried to jump between the bench and table of a picnic table (we were all dancing around and acting silly), and managed to hit his head.  The result was a couple superficial scalp wounds that bled A LOT!  Thank goodness he didn't need stitches.  The next day was the 4th of July, so after exploring the ranch and fishing on the lake, we headed to downtown Durango for a parade.  We skipped out on the fireworks because our kiddos are just not ready to stay up that late.  We did watch some on TV as we were putting the kids to bed.

After our vacation within a vacation in Durango, we drove to Salt Lake City, UT and spent the night.  The next day, we made it into Reno, NV.

In Reno, we spent a lot of time with Dave's Grandma.  She lives in a really nice assisted living facility, so we had several meals there, and spent a lot of time visiting and catching up around her garden.  Grandma has a little dog named Emmie, and James and Audrey had fun chasing her around.  Audrey called the garden "Emmie's park".  Dave's brother and his wife and daughter, as well as Nana (Dave's mom) were in Reno at the same time we were.  It was really fun having such a big crowd together with Grandma.  James and Audrey loved playing with their cousin, Julia (she was about 10 months old at the time).  James would crack Julia up by pretending to beat himself up.  It was pretty cute.  We also got to visit with Dave's Aunt Suzie, Uncle Hal and Aunt Linda, and Aunt Carolyn.  While in Reno, we took advantage of the cool mornings and visited a couple parks/playgrounds.  Dave and I took turns running.  The scenery was beautiful, and the cool mornings and evenings were enough to convince me to move there (this is not actually going to happen at this point in our lives).  One highlight of the trip was going to Lake Tahoe.  It was only a 50 minute drive from Reno, and went by so quickly because it was such a beautiful drive.  Lake Tahoe is breathtaking!  The kids really enjoyed splashing around the water.  Again, I was totally sold on moving to Reno at this point!

After 5 days in Reno, we started the trek home.  Our first stop was Las Vegas, NV.  We thought we'd only have time to sleep there, but ended up being able to have dinner and take the kids to see the fountains at the Bellagio.  James was not interested in the fountains at all because we passed some guys dressed as super heroes on the way there, and that was all he could even think about.

The next day, we headed to The Grand Canyon.  It started raining moments after we arrived there, so all we could see was rain.  We waited around for a little while, but the rain wasn't letting up.  It was a fun little adventure stomping around in the rain.  We'll definitely have to go back and try again.  James was pretty excited to see "the big hole in the ground", but we only got a quick glimpse.  We drove into Flagstaff, AZ to stay the night, and had dinner at cute little diner on Route 66.

Our final stop before home was Santa Fe, NM.  Our plans there were also disrupted by rain, so we went to a movie.  Monsters University was really cute!  So, no Santa Fe culture for us.  But, we were all so tired by this point, a movie was a nice way to spend the evening.

We made it home the next day, and the whole second half of the drive was in the rain.  Who knew it'd rain so much in mid-July?

We had a wonderful trip, and we're looking forward to more road trips in the summers to come!